UKC

Was sooooo lucky yesterday to see these two. I know birders who’ve been going all their lives to this place and never seen one. (I put the hours in though, which increases my odds I suppose).  

Spoonbills and barn owl. At one point, I had both the two cuckoos and the barn owl in my vision at the same time, but my camera started playing up so missed a photo chance.  

I saw one with a group of clients on a rocky promontory at the Quairang on Skye this week. Could make out a clear outline with naked eye, and binoculars gave plenty of detail 🙂

Fab, and two at once!

I’ve only ever seen one cuckoo (last year at this time of year) and that was a long way away 🙄. Not even hearing any this year so far.

Heard there has been a Spoonbill moving about up here and even an Avocet!!

Cuckoos should be seen but not heard. Just so irritating. They never shut up and it often seems impossible to escape their stupid cuckooing it travels so far. Hate the bastard birds.

Lovely pics of the Cuckoos, where was this?

Hesketh out marsh , close to the car park. What was interesting was as soon as I arrived (very early) I couldn’t believe the number of sedge warblers calling. Then when I saw the cuckoos I added two and two - lots of nests to parasite. Saw two little gulls, two wood sand and a male garganey at Marshside, and the spoonbills. And grey plover in full summer plumage. A beautiful, striking bird. 

Blimey, you can't half be a miserable sod at times.

In Northumberland this weekend, saw my first Roseate terns yesterday. On the ground I'm now ok with differentiating between Common, Arctic and Roseate but in the air, nah.

Last weekend, South Stack, saw 1 puffin, loads of guillemots, razorbills and one black guillemot in Holyhead harbour.

This weekend around Croquet island, thousands and thousands of puffins. Inner Farne tomorrow, probably won't see anything exceptional but the experience being so close to nesting terns etc is well worth it.

Sedge warblers - seeing them everywhere, and last weekend even had an obliging reed warbler.

Oh yes, Anglesey full of Whimbrels, loads of them. Eventually saw some Curlew. I'm sure that's the wrong way round.

Are they on migration? I've only seen them on their rocky nesting grounds in Shetland (thought they were curlews until I looked them up), which I thought was pretty much their common southern limit, and wintering in Arabia. Beautiful birds.

I seem to be seeing and hearing a lot this spring.

Only half?

Whimbrels - a few nest well north but most are migrants. They are well known for having a break in the UK to feed up, etc before carrying on.

Nice photo, clearly shows the stripes on the crown and the shorter bill with the downcurve near the end (compared with curlew, longer bill with more constant curve).

Wow, fantastic pics!

I saw a Bluethroat at Slimbridge today but didn't get a photo. (Didn't even make out the blue colour but was confident of id).

I was being polite... 🙄

Further to my tongue in cheek comments.
You should feel yourself privileged to hear Cuckoos as it's a bird that has essentially disappeared for the vast majority of people in the UK.
I remember in the 1980's routinely hearing them as one of the signs of the start of Spring.
That has long gone and the only time I hear them now is when I'm up in North Wales in pretty much isolated locations.
What a sad state of affairs... 

At this time of year it is often pretty hard to get out of earshot of them in the highlands. I've been on top of a mountain and simultaneously had three of the things going off miles away in different glens. Very annoying!

I genuinely find the first cuckoo somehow dispiriting. Always feels more like the end of spring's freshness.

And they are basically parasites.

Inner Farne today so managed some almost worthwhile shots on the smartphone - sunny so not easy to see screen and at max zoom (only X4) so not great pixel wise.

Great to see some of these so close

I was lucky enough to see a Cuckoo at Standing Stones yesterday - very close, in profile and banked in a turn. It was also calling while on the wing - I didn't know they do that. I have never seen a Cuckoo before; what a privilege!

We saw dozens of sand martins as we walked up the Lune towards Kirkby Lonsdale. They literally exploded en masse out of their burrows and it was great to see. I just hope there aren't any big floods before the young fledge. They've been devastated in other years.

You miserable git! I give you a bit of Will:

'When daisies pied and violets blue

      And lady-smocks all silver-white

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue

      Do paint the meadows with delight,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men; for thus sings he: 

                                                    “Cuckoo;

Cuckoo, cuckoo!” O, word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear!'

Resonates with me ... 🤔

On our long day in the Cuillin back in 1989 the cuckoo started calling at 03:20, just as it started getting light...

What a depressing start to the day. 

I think the most irritating thing about them is that just as you start to get out of range of one of them another always seems to take over. Inescapable; the worst sort of noise pollution. 

I'm starting to wonder if you're pulling our legs about your hatred of Cuckoos as your attitude towards them is otherwise bordering on the irrational. 
I lived on a beautiful planet once
Did it have Cuckoos?
Oh yes, lots of them.
I hate Cuckoos.

I heard a cuckoo this weekend up at Crianlarich. 

Commiserations.

Yeah. If they spent time raising their young, maybe they'd have less time for calling.

But maybe the falling is to remind their childcare that they are still in the area... A form of ongoing intimidation...

Spare a thought for most of us on here for whom a cuckoo means a Highland trip or a memory.  Not just cuckoos, less obvious species have faded away as well.

Excellent pics! I never saw one for years, like decades, then saw two together in lock down. Damned things are like buses

I’ve been failing in trying to see a whinchat this spring, then saw three yesterday !  

So much like midges, motorhomes and A9 roadworks then.

Perfectly rational. One is spoiling my breakfast right now on the Ben Lawers road. I'm in favour of eradication. The reed buntings and willow warblers are thankfully doing their best to drown it out.

Had a nice ring ouzel hopping about on the summit of Ben Lawers earlier this morning though. My Merlin app thought there was also a little owl and a spotted redshank about; I think it must have been mistaken.

Lots of Cuckoos at The Burren currently

Incidentally a Peak hotspot is the area in between Birchen and Gardom edges..

Spotted Redshank up there - very, very remote possibility during migration 

Little Owl - not a chance 

I’ve heard the best place to avoid cuckoos is between Birchen and Gardom edges, none have been heard in decades. You should go there for a cuckoo free time. 

You would have loved my dad. He was fond of doing cuckoo calls, and was good at it. Many times as a child I remember him having angry male cuckoos flying round us in the NW Highlands, calling in return. One truly furious bird somewhere near the brochs of Glenelg will never be forgotten: I thought it might attack us. He would have ruined your breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner, supper, everything, and fooled the Merlin app for sure.

When I was a teenager, I used to be able to imitate Tawny Owl calls (the t-wit bit, not the hoo-hoo) well enough to attract at least one rival owl into the big tree at the bottom of our garden.

Nowadays my voice won't go that high, even if I'm wearing tight trousers 😁 (have to make do with the Merlin app - not tried it out on owls yet)

Or anywhere outside of a few areas really.
I remember as a child in the 1980's waiting to hear the sound of a Cuckoo and that was in a semi industrialised area of South Wales.
Incredibly sad that such things are now history to many and even sadder that it's probably caused by human activity.
It's obviously not just Cuckoos that have declined as virtually every single bird has seen a massive decline in the UK.
I'm finding it really difficult to fathom the idea that people begrudge the call of a Cuckoo as it somehow *upsets* their day.  FFS, get some perspective...

Gone from not seeing a cuckoo this year to seeing not only an adult but then a juvenile. I was really lucky to see the juvenile cuckoo with its foster parents this week - Meadow Pipits!

Incredible sight to watch the two “parents” fussing over the juvenile with the comical size difference. I had seen on a tv program years ago the sight of a foster parent landing on the back of a juvenile cuckoo to be able to feed it. Wow, to see it myself at close distance though!

The parents were coaxing it to fly and to go for food itself. The cuckoo did and flew from its high wire perch down to the ground and came back with a large caterpillar in it’s beak. Contrariwise it seemed one of the parents was snuggling up to the cuckoo at one point!

Hopefully the parents will be left to have a brood of their own now; I believe M Pipits typically have two broods in a season.

Also saw a sight I never expected - a buzzard, Osprey and Red Kite all in the same air space flying lazily gliding about probably enjoying the sun warmth 😎.

Brilliant. All of it. 

Sounds amazing, did you manage to get any piccies?

Poor meadow pipits though. I like meadow pipits.

I saw my breakfast cuckoo this morning. Unfortunately I had neither big lens nor shotgun handy. 

I did but light was “wrong” so not great.  I’ll post some - not at pc meantime.

Jesus man!  I can give you the number for Samaritans if you want. Didn’t realise it was so bad. 

I think you may have misunderstood. It's not that bad; the shotgun would have been for the cuckoo, not myself.

Good spot on the scoters !

Just thought I'd scan the few ducks that were there, saw those 2 and thought 1 black duck one brown, not tufties, hmm.

First thought was scoters, had a look in my guide and on merlin to see what female looked like, got the scope out and everything fell into place. Had much better views an hour or so later from the other side, closer and light behind. Makes a change from them just being black dots out at sea. 

Other people I saw there later confirmed - apparently they're seen there every so often, but this is rather late. Elton Res is apparently on a common migration route from east coast to the NW.

And this is the 3rd weekend in a row I've actually seen a Reed Warbler rather than just hearing them.

One way to sort out your cuckoo problem is to stay at home and not go out into the glorious highlands so often 😁

Do you need a hug? 

I heard the first cuckoo this Spring (shades of Delius?) on April 20th. I've always made a note in my diary and they always call between the 15th and 21st up here (Trawsfynydd). Contrary to the views of Mr Durran, I love 'em. There's a Welsh saying, "glywith hwna mo'r gog" which , translated means   "he'll not hear the cuckoo", a sign of somebody on his last legs...

The other Friday, I was up in the foothills of the Rhinogydd trying to photograph the aurora and suddenly a cuckoo started calling nearby, it was just after midnight. Crazy!

They are nowhere near annoying enough for that. Still pretty annoying though. I can't believe I'm alone in finding them tiresome.

I do always associate them with Scotland's catastrophic 3-1 defeat to Peru in their opening game of the 1978 World Cup. A hot sticky evening camping on the shore of Loch Awe after a tiring, dehydrating day on Cruachan. Cuckoos coming off on the hill, cuckoos by the loch, cuckoos during the game..... 

There was a lot of activity like photo 3 (pipits display flying close by repeatedly) which I am now guessing was maybe to entice the cuckoo as the time to leave, goodbye, go and fend for yourself as it contrasted with the pipits sitting next to the cuckoo earlier! The end of watching was photo 4 which is the cuckoo flying off to a nearby wood without the “parents”. 

"Good" news - they were everywhere in 1978. Not anymore, and not just cuckoos.

Simply wow.

I've just looked them up and while the UK population has decreased by about 40% in the last couple of decades, it has actually increased a bit recently. Meanwhile Scotland's population has been stable or increasing. So maybe not my perception of a plague of them in the highlands, but not decreasing. I only ever hear them in the Highlands so I wonder if they are declining in the lowlands and in fact increasing further north.

They’re actually migrating from other UK areas to the Scottish Highlands purely to piss you off. 

A guy I know went to photo the aurora at midnight and his soundtrack was a grasshopper warbler !  

Just been reading about the red backed shrikes!  Gutted I’m not there - I’ve never seen one. Wild Crail estimates about 10 along the East Neuk. 

This says a 59% increase in cuckoo numbers in the last 25 years but a 71% decrease in England. 

https://community.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/b/scotland/posts/the-coll-of-the-cuck...

So maybe you are right and they are deliberately plaguing the highlands. Perhaps they could be caught and relocated south to keep everyone happy.

Haven’t recently read the blog until just now unfortunately or I could maybe have fitted in a wee visit already. Unless they stay till at least early next week, I’ll not have a chance of seeing them either. Thanks for heads up.

Didn’t even manage to see the RB Flycatcher when I dropped in past when it was about! Some birders were saying it was showing well earlier!! The joys of birdwatching.

Did see the “American Black Duck” at Skinflats though by chance, but that is apparently now deemed to be only a hybrid!

I imagine there's been more than a couple of members of the avian family over the years who've thought "not this 'head again with his cowbells?"

Great pics there.

Cuckoos are one of my favourite birds. The heralds of summer

Seems very unfair on the birds, besides everyone else seems to enjoy them.  Perhaps you should be caught and relocated instead.

Do owls keep you awake at night?

Skylarks disturb your afternoon nap?

Seagulls?

Or is just cuckoos

Several calling in the Pentlands this week.

Just cuckoos. I like all other birds.

I'd be surprised if there were not other closet cuckoo dislikers. Surely.....

May I suggest Principe for a trip - got shown a cuckoo (not ours) freshly killed by a local kid with a catapult.  Being our Winter there were loads of swifts, greenshank and sandpipers knocking about.